Ex Fyre Fest designer says fraudster Billy McFarland, Anna Delvey, Luigi Mangione have one thing in common

The former social media designer for Fyre Festival says social media is fueling the idolization of bad actors and scammers, specifically naming Fyre Festival creator Billy McFarland, notorious scam socialite Anna Delvey Sorokin and UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione as prime examples.Oren Aks spoke with Fox News Digital after Fyre Festival 2, a do-over version of the original Fyre Festival that failed in 2017, was postponed just weeks before it was scheduled to take place in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, between May 30 and June 2. Oren Aks, who was employed with Jerry Media when he did graphic design and social media strategy work for Fyre Festival in 2017, told Fox News Digital that, in the age of social media, the public makes icons out of con artists and criminals like Delvey and Mangione.McFarland is no exception, he said.“We look at them like they’re iconic, like, ‘Oh what’s she wearing to court?’ And … at a certain point, you’re just more obsessed with them as this narrative that you’ve built rather than who they actually are.… If you met Billy, you wouldn’t be impressed,” Aks said.Aks added that the public, especially the American public, does not talk about the success stories of millionaire and billionaire business moguls in the same way the public discusses scammers and “money grubbers,” particularly on social media.“It used to be … this inspirational route you would take in your career to kind of move up a ladder or earn a living and buy a house or something.

Now, we vilify those people, and we glorify the bad, the scammy, the evil, and we look at those people as heroes,” Aks said. “Like style icons or freedom fighters or whatever other imaginary title you want to assign them.And I think … it’s very worrying as a societal shift.

… Why are we doing this?”Aks added that America has built up the idea “that you have to fail big to win big, or you have try big to succeed.”“And they’re almost kin...